WSSD Board Meeting 2/28/22

001[Music] i now call the february 28th meeting of the wallingford swarthmore school board to order in opening as your willing and able please rise and join me in saying the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so i'd like to start the evening by asking mr gorda please take the roll call them dr grandy here mr henry yep mrs holbert here mr cutis here mrs lentz miss vote here miss whitsett miss wikowski smith present miss walkman here mr berman dr marseille mr darson here thank you miss walkman there are seven voting members present eight eight i think what do we know we're missing justice and miss oh okay

002we'll come back i know she had to run out to her car oh so i apologize no no you you didn't know okay thank you and here she is okay all right thank you uh and we will ask mr darson if we could have our uh student representatives report please february though short was very busy at the high school it's really the first month that i've truly felt that things are going back to normal maybe it's the masks but i think it's more the activities all of the events that i remember from the last full month before the pandemic all happened and the entire school had a certain buzz that just made it so fun to come to school every day the silver tones came around for valentine's day to do their oh so popular

003singing valentines there is nothing scarier than the moment that you see a group of 15 or so high schoolers wearing pink and red slam the door open you never know who it's for until they start crowding around you i got one this year and it was the most awkward one minute of my life this overtone still sounded beautiful and they fundraised a good amount of money for their trip to italy which is coming up soon there was a beautiful student curated black history month assembly last tuesday as well between a beautiful dance number and a moving video everyone at the school learned something whether it was about tolerance or their classmates later that week we had the chris king games a full day of people playing basketball in order to raise money for a scholarship

004that'll go to some of the current seniors there wasn't a big student faculty game this year though which was really disappointing because i would have loved to see dr marseille shoot some hoops this month was also a great month for theater at both the middle school and the high school the middle school's performance of the adams family was incredible the costumes the acting and the set were all amazing the high school musical into the woods had just had its opening weekend i went to go see it and the only i can way i can describe it is wow everyone should try to go see it this weekend there's a show on friday and saturday at 7 30 pm and sunday at 2pm tickets will be available at the door for 10 dollars for an adult

005and 5 dollars for students and senior citizens the theater department would love to get more community support today and tomorrow a fourth grade class at srs is putting on an african-american wax museum in honor of black history month they've been working hard on their projects and are excited to share all that they've learned and that leaves us with march the longest school month hopefully it'll be just as eventful as february who knows maybe i'll finally get to see dr marseille on the court thank you mr darson i'm not so sure he agrees that that's gonna happen but thank you for the wonderful report there's so many exciting things that have been going on um as you said in february in the arts in um in uh our winter sports um with black history month and

006it's really nice to hear your enthusiasm too thank you uh i'll turn now uh dr merced to your superintendent's report listen uh so praise you have to be careful what you asked for um i found out really quickly can i do two things run and have a ball in my hand right it was one or the other and uh fortunately the the legs took over right i was told that's called the travel i said i can't sprint down uh i have to bounce it so um uh maybe one day but it'll be very embarrassing do not pick me because i'm the tallest guy in the room because you'll be in trouble um but yeah i heard about that and uh i really kept away purposely uh so i wouldn't embarrass myself and somewhere on social

007media go out there um but i heard it was a good event um but thank you so we'll see um i don't mind embarrassing myself uh for the student cause so that's true i see it i see a uh fundraising opportunity yeah i absolutely see a fundraising opportunity yeah just like the dunk uh contest we can do that as well um so a couple things i wanna share in my superintendent's superintendent's update um and i think i'd be remiss if i didn't take the opportunity to talk about what's happening in ukraine um and the 44 million lives are impacted and we stand in solidarity for the sovereignty of any region and the invasion of ukraine the violence taking there though there are many conflicts happening across the world that may not come across our our

008tv screens or social media feeds but it is extremely disturbing to see that and to see men women and children running for their lives as bombs are falling and as that we individually do our part to think about what role we play in helping to give voice to that cause and obviously the international community is coming together doing as much as this can to stop i won't even say ceasefire stop the invasion that's all there is to it um and i want to say that for our parents and guardians that um your child or your children are living history they're experiencing it now they're having conversations about things happening across the world whether you are facilitating that at your home um whether that's happening through friends and others they are seeing it and the place

009where most conversations take place is in the schoolhouse where they're connecting with each other uh they're naturally curious at all age levels i'm hearing something what's happening what does that mean um and age appropriate our staff can help students think through what is happening it doesn't have to be an advanced placement geopolitical class it can happen in any class as you're sitting down and you happen to see a threat you're asking what's going on over there in ukraine and why is this happening you don't have to be an expert i think that's what's so wonderful about our teaching staff is the ability to probe that we may not have the answers we allow the opportunity for students to say well tell me how you're feeling um what are your thoughts about that um what does

010it mean to be a good neighbor what can we do all those are conversations that uh organically happen when there are volumes of uh political social challenges that our students um are seeing across whatever median that they have access that they have access to um so prayer goes a long way but so does action and we think about what can we do collectively to lend our our voice to the ukrainian people um so i want to make sure that we acknowledge uh what is happening uh over there and thinking about those individuals um we have a couple of focus topics uh that i want to quickly get through mind so we can give the opportunity uh for the individuals we have the foundation who um has always been has been so good to us but

011i don't need to tell you that i've only been here for a short period of time and witness to their work and their commitment and dr mccullough is going to come briefly when we get to that point um and i know she's excited she's like coming out the blocks i love it all right um but she's gonna do a little introduction and then we'll go through and um and see uh what miss riley's been uh up to and everybody else around this work and then um i'm really excited um because i think that it's extremely important to do two things listen to student voice but more importantly give the platform for students to do that and when students approach me and the gender sexuality line said hey um we want to meet one have a

012conversation and i said absolutely i don't turn down meetings talk to me i'm in service of you what is it that i need to think differently about um so we have a presentation tonight from our students uh who want to share their story want to share um the history in which the way they're living it and want to ask administration and the board for some reflective moments um and possibly some action steps which i'm not surprised if they have them which i'm sure that they uh that they do and then we have uh dr mansenka and his whole entire team here uh who's gonna talk about uh what makes the middle school the best middle school in the country um so we're excited to uh to hear about that um and then we'll have a

013uh a follow-up to uh a facilities and finance meeting that we had briefly and we thought it was important that we give a little bit air time to mr fox who's going to come and talk briefly about a preliminary walkthrough of our safety protocols that he wanted to give us some feedback on and plans that we're going to move forward with so let me get through my um uh my report and then we'll get through those focused topics uh and ask uh and ask questions um so i wanted to share uh that um we continue to navigate through obviously the covet experience i want to share you what i've been sharing in terms of where we are as a as a community that all but one of our schools have moved to mass math optional

014i sent communication on friday detailing where we've been since february 7 in terms of our incident rates over a 14 uh day rolling uh period and happy to see that those numbers uh just like all the numbers we're seeing across uh across the parts of the country and parts of the state are are steadily declining and wanted to obviously share the latest guidance though in december uh the district uh wanted to look at something very different though the cdc was providing guidance in terms of their recommendation and felt that we needed a much more localized way of looking at our data versus uh the other 15 uh communities surrounding us because our data was very different um our vaccine ratio vaccination rates were very different our incidence rates were very different and wanted to localize

015that as some of you [Music] know the cdc uh provided new guidance on on friday and of course just like many organizations they drop it on a friday evening um in terms where everyone's trying to either make their way home or have been home in terms of that process and what um the cd has recommended is that they change the way in which they've calculated um community transmission and identified whether or not you were community levels were high and what and the recommendation of wearing a mask if it is if you are in medium that it becomes um an option for you and obviously if you are an individual who has underlining uh conditions or immune compromised that you speak to your medical professional and discuss whether or not a mass is appropriate and of

016course if you are in the low levels of disease they can consult with their providers determine whether or not they wear a mask but they uh have shared that at this point um and according to the director that they do want to when the nature of the virus has shifted we shared that information in december where we felt that the way we're looking at the data it was beginning to shift although i understand that there are very different perspectives on that on that particular on that particular stance so we want to share that where they are and all this information you can find on the cdc uh website in terms of how they are talking about community levels whether low medium or or high and then in that dashboard they have the opportunity where they

017share with you uh the extent in which where delaware county is currently right now and as you um are aware or may not be aware that the current levels are at medium which puts delaware uh county to using total delaware accounting metrics as a mass optional county with regards to leaving that as a as a decision whether or not you want to mask mask or not so with all of that it really the question is what does that mean for our health and safety plan well a uh the district in light of that uh news on friday we will continue to implement our mitigation strategies they are currently identified in our health and safety plan we'll continue to monitor our community building levels for our 14 day rolling count to determine if any modifications are

018required we anticipate that on march 3rd that srs will be able to move to mass optional based on our metrics and then um at that time on march 3rd which we want to give an opportunity for transition that as a result of the lifting of that federal mass mandate on public transportation i shouldn't say public k-12 transportation and buses that uh effective march 3rd we will move to mass optional on our on our buses and give individuals an opportunity to begin that uh transition we're only a couple days away from that and all the indicators at least for srs shows that we've been moving in that trend so we want to hold firm to that and we anticipate that will take place so as of march 3rd all of our schools will go to mask

019optional um for her ready bin in mask optional um and then as a march third uh optional in terms of uh school bus buses and school vans as well um i want to turn so that's with regards to health and safety plan i want to turn uh your focus to some of the work that we committed to with regards to our equity audit uh and a full report that we've provided to the public um on uh this wednesday coming up at seven o'clock um and d226 um and we hope that you can uh you can join us and that work um preliminarily though you have not seen that information is extremely telling in terms of what needs to be done but i think many of us probably knew some of that long before the findings

020of the the audit though we are looking forward to the curriculum audit as well that has started and want to make sure that we have your your voice and part of that is really about change and what i have shared and oftentimes um becomes extremely challenges is that change is difficult uh change is hard um but change is necessary um and uh there are two items tonight that are voting items that i've asked the board to consider one is really about the work around uh organizational shifts and uh what i have seen what i have heard what i've counted in terms of uh beginning to set the stage for us to be ready for the work that lies ahead not only from the equity audit but also from the curriculum audit that's pending also from

021the communications audit that uh is coming as well which is another um item on the agenda as we've identified um a consulting firm to come and help us with that with that process and i had shared with the community the old organizational chart and uh identified ways in which we wanted to better align uh those positions and those particular responsibilities to meet the challenges of of tomorrow and i identify that this proposal really helps to think about how do we make sure that we are fulfilling the district's core mission and vision how do we think about the way we're preparing for the strategic plan that will be coming how do we have clear hierarchy and delineate defined roles and responsibilities how do we then begin to address some systemic prevailing challenges around educational outcomes and

022opportunities and how do we begin to narrow the significant gaps that have existed in this district for quite some time for particular subgroups of students but also in terms of simultaneously which i've always believed how do you raise the floor at the same time raising the ceiling in terms of in terms of opportunity and eradicating these inequities that will take some time because it took us some time to get here and things don't happen uh overnight so uh i recommended to uh to the board a uh a new design a new way of of thinking uh with some of the organization organizational chart and the roles and responsibilities and positions that i believe move us um uh in the right direction at the right pace in which uh is uh is needed and obviously part

023of that is we want to be extremely innovative in this district we want to provide a myriad of opportunities to our students so that when they stand on that proverbial stage that we've equipped them with the skill sets that they they need there's tremendous opportunity as great as the challenges around this work with diversity equity and cultural proficiency um part of that uh is bringing individuals on board to help support that work as well talk a little bit about that um and the need to better support our trauma-informed practices our mental health and our counseling to support uh to support students and to eradicate the inequities that uh that exist so with that uh proposed or an organizational structure that i believe speaks to and better prepares for the work that um that that lot

024that lies ahead and um one of those items is really about the way in which we think about identity you're going to hear a little bit about that in a little bit and the way in which there is an intersection between teaching learning and identity and that students bring to them bring to us who they are and we need to be better equipped to meet those multiple identities that walk into our buildings that walk into our classroom that uh make their way through our um that make our way through our hallways and it's really at the end of the day this sense of belonging right do i feel as though i belong in this organization and what are the messages unintentionally intentionally that are being sent to me as i'm navigating through um through the

025building a great belonging through dignity if you haven't picked that up i recommend that it's a really good read that talks about the multiple identities and how belonging is an integral part of that part of that process so we are looking to build an extremely uh healthy ecosystem and part of that as we have heard is the appropriate professional development and professional learning that is needed for all members of this of this community and we believe that the individuals that we have sought out um will begin to lay the groundwork for some of that and we move from talking about this to actually putting into place actionable uh items so though the board has a lot of important motions to vote on this evening and obviously every regular meeting this in particular these two uh

026i think set the stage for work that um needs to begin in the spring work that will continue in the summer so that we are better prepared um to uh to support our students and staff in uh uh in the fall um and you really can't do this work um if you're working in silos you can't do this work unless everyone's committed to having a common language around what that really means and how to better support that and i think you'll hear a little bit about that later on in some of the focus uh topic uh conversations uh so with that um please come to our educational affairs committee meeting on wednesday it is an opportunity for hanover research who's been doing a lot of work to give uh and present uh the results of

027our equity report i want to tell you it's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the data they produced for us a data dashboard with information that they've collected that goes back all the way 2015 every which way you can slice it it provides a compelling story and a story that helps inform the work that we're doing and of course uh please join us for our facilities and finance on march 16th and our policy committee meeting on march 27 7 pm at bt26 that concludes my superintendent's report thank you very much dr marseille i tonight is one of those meetings that i sometimes call a meeting meeting there's the things that we're going to talk about tonight and that we vote on tonight are absolutely you said setting the stage for the next

028four years at least five years as we prepare to uh enter into our next strategic plan as well so um with that uh we turn to our focus topics um would you like to yeah actually our first uh topic if i may um uh track star dr mccullough coming out the blocks first one out the blocks always wins the race um so we're really excited uh and thank you dr mccullough for introducing our guests and you know the history better than i um and um and the love that the foundation has shown the district around this around its work um so please speak a little bit about that and introduce our guests who are here great thank you so much for those of you who don't know me i'm dr megan mccullough and i'm one

029of the directors of student services we've been working pretty closely with frannie riley and the ed foundation for a couple of years when she called dr marseille and i and said that the foundation really wanted to do something around mental health we felt strongly that positive behavior interventions and supports was a framework that really captures a lot of our initiatives including behavioral health a positive school culture this idea of belonging in the school and trauma-invested practices so with that said we were thrilled when the ed foundation voted to support pbis not just this year but on an ongoing basis and quite frankly the folks that have done the heavy lifting to get pbis in place um k to eight has been our principals and our coaches so i'd just like you to hear one sentence

030two sentences from each of our coaches because i think it's really important hey good afternoon everyone my name is jonathan blake i'm a fourth grade teacher at srs and i'm our tier one pbis coach um i guess in our school at least to me what pbis kind of means is establishing clear expectations that allow kind of kids to feel are three are safe respectful responsible but kind of a safe learning culture as a teacher and as a person to me i think it just is three fundamental core values that we all embody and we all kind of want to have so starting with our kids from a young age i think it goes a long way good evening my name is sophie scheintak i'm the tier 2 coach at srs tier 2 has impacted our

031school culture by helping us to build a more inclusive community to positively reframe our outlook on student behavioral needs pbis tier 2 has personally given me the opportunity to help all of our students be more successful and has supported me in developing more collaborative relationships with my colleagues hi everybody my name is larry miller i'm the tier one coach at west probably one of the most amazing things that i experienced when we first brought pbis in is how much peace it brought to our school which has been awesome for myself one of the things that i took away from our original meeting that we had about pbis was that you have to teach expectations before you can have kids understand what they are and follow them and i thought that was really powerful we talk

032a lot about that at my school hi i'm erica weaver i'm the chair 2 coach at west i think tier 2 has provided a lot of additional support for behaviors that we see in our building and for me as the counselor it's really given the students some ownership of their behaviors with the conversations that they have with teachers during check and checkout hi my name is maria thomas from another province elementary and i am the tier 1 and tier 2 coach there pbis has really given us the opportunity to really create a system of behavior support and acknowledgement for all of our students while at the same time kind of empowering our staff to teach common expectations as you've heard before and really provide school-wide supports for everyone personally it's just been my pleasure to

033be a part of creating a positive school climate with a wonderful team of teachers who are also just as passionate about pbis i'm michelle divini and i am sam hart and we are the tier one coaches at the middle school culture has changed for the better since introducing panther pride the students love being recognized for their positive behaviors and the adults appreciate the structured expectations and consistent language i personally enjoy celebrating students who make good choices and i personally enjoy the supportive and positive relationships developed between staff and students thanks so much these are really the folks that are involved in in the day today and again we just want to share how grateful we are to the foundation for supporting this very very important initiative and i hope that we will continue to have

034this partnership for years to come so thanks so much [Music] as we prepare to go into our next focus topic i can just say um as as a parent of of two of our well three students now who have gone through and and um had the support through pbis um it was nice to see the teachers talk about that um i see it as a parent um and we've been really fortunate with one of my children in particular to be supported in a significant way through it and i i could not be more happy so i want to thank all of the pbis coaches as well they they're amazing um so with that uh uh dr yes um we have the opportunity to hear from one of our student groups um the general structural alliance

035alliance has asked to share sorry my mic was off so we look forward to their presentation so zoe i don't know if you want to take the mic and go from there and we'll have i'm not sure if you need my clicker to get through can have the clicker there you go you're very welcome good evening everyone thank you so much for having us and thank you dr marseille for giving us the chance to talk a little bit about the gender neutral restrooms at strathaven uh before we get started i'd like to thank our gsa advisor ms defalbalto and jillian thomas for providing us with a bunch of information that really helped us and thank you to the gender sexuality alliance for helping us put this presentation together today um we have a lot of

036students watching on youtube from home so thank you all so we're gonna get started talking about the gender neutral bathrooms at strathaven high school and oh we should introduce ourselves my name is zoe feinberg i usually hear pronouns i'm a senior and i'm one of the co-leaders of gsa and i'll let everyone else introduce themselves as well before we get into our information uh hello everybody my name is anika goswami i use shive pronouns oh and i am a sophomore hello my name is sylvain pray harbach i'm a junior at straight haven high school and i use he him pronouns uh hi my name is carolyn eskenazi and i use he him pronouns i am a sophomore all right so we put this presentation together so to get started we'd like to talk about kind

037of what the current situation is with gender neutral bathrooms at strathaven high school as of recently we had a meeting with dr hilden who talked to us a little bit about how they're trying to unlock some of the gender neutral bathrooms for people who don't know there are five gender neutral bathrooms at strathaven high school but up until recently most of them were locked some were used for band storage um and they're incredibly out of the way as of right now as far as we know three out of five of the gender neutral bathrooms in strathaven high school are unlocked and usable um however all of the gender neutral bathrooms in strathaven high school are far from classes like incredibly far and fairly inaccessible many students are unaware that the gender-neutral bathrooms exist uh we

038actually only found out recently as the leaders of gsa that there are five gender-neutral bathrooms we thought that there were two uh and students do not feel that the gender neutral bathrooms are predictably accessible as they've just recently been unlocked and have been uh and in the past have been unlocked and re-locked without warning so there's kind of a lack of trust because it's taken so long to get just a few of them unlocked we're going to talk a little bit about school policy the gender sexuality alliance did some research into what the school district says when it comes to trans and non-binary students and their rights at school so these are taken from the gender expansive and transgender students ensuring equity and non-discrimination which is page five section e uh so number one gender

039non-conforming students shall have access to the restroom that uh that corresponds with their gender identity where available a single stall restroom should be available and administrators shall make every effort to provide the students with reasonable access to an alternative restroom such as a single stall restroom so after reading this we were a bit confused because we found that the gender neutral bathrooms within strathaven high school are not accessible they are far from classes we had a student actually time how long it takes to get from a classroom in the middle of the second floor to some of the gender neutral bathrooms i believe it was two a two and a half minute walk there which then is a two and a half minute walk back so students are out of the uh in order to

040use the gender neutral restroom students will be out of the room for at least five minutes and that takes away instruction time so trans and non-binary students are missing excessive instruction time just to use a gender affirming restroom and they were just recently unlocked so this is also from the gender expensive and transgender students ensuring equity and non-discrimination all persons including students have a right to privacy this includes keeping a student's actual or perceived gender identity and expression private so this brings up the issue of privacy within the gender neutral bathrooms and this issue when forced to request gender affirming bathrooms trans and non-binary students are forcibly outed to school personnel actively contradicting wssd's privacy guidelines so when the bathrooms are locked students have to request a key and when you ask to use a

041gender-neutral bathroom that forces you to out yourself to school personnel additionally students will occasionally use the nurse's restroom and that again forces them to out themselves they also if they're uncomfortable leaving the room for an extended amount of time and want to explain to their teacher hey i'm going to go use the gender neutral restroom that also forces them to have themselves so now anika's going to talk a little bit about our research on federal policy uh hello so as a part of our presentation we also researched federal policies concerning genderqueer students and their bathroom situations in america as a whole today um so students have the right to not be compelled to provide personal and medical information to school officials the national education alliance states um disclosure through requiring students to request access to

042gender neutral restrooms our school forces students to out themselves in order to use a gender affirming restroom um so title ix title ix is a federal civil rights law which was passed as a part of the education amendments of 1972 it states that no person in the united states shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance discrimination title ix also recognizes gender identity it protects students from exclusion so without accessible safe or gender affirming restrooms trans and non-binary students are excluded and from feeling safe in the wssd community as a whole which is isn't very fair and it's not inclusive at all uh sylvan will not be all right so our current

043situation at the high school so hello i thought it turned off um so there are binary bathrooms there's the nurses bathroom and then there are the gender neutral bathrooms so the binary bathrooms are easily accessible they force gender non-conforming students to use bathrooms that don't align with their gender identity and it forces gender non-conforming students to into unsafe environments where they don't feel comfortable so there is also the nurses bathroom as an option which forces students to out themselves as gender non-conforming by requesting to use the bathroom just as discussed in a previous section it also exposes students to possible illnesses held in the nurse's office since the bathroom is a space in the nurse's office for that when there's a medical crisis gender non-conforming students are denied access to this bathroom nurse's office because

044it's for the nurse's office and just like the gender non the the gender neutral bathrooms that aren't uh unlocked it's far from classes and not accessible so there's limited knowledge as stated before uh about the placement of the bathrooms around school uh if you ask if you even say you know the bathrooms are near the trainer many students will tell you that they do not know where the trainer is and they're far from classes and unpredictable whether it's going to be locked or unlocked and so now we're going to share some student experiences yeah so we asked students in the gsa to share with us uh some of their experiences in what they've resorted to in terms of using the restroom uh so we actually we have a couple things to read some of them

045are have been asked some of them asked us to read them anonymously on their behalf uh so i'll get started and we're going to take turns uh this is from a student that says i hate having to watch my genderqueer friends walk all over the school to use the bathroom or use bathrooms that cause them deep discomfort this is from a student that says it's uncomfortable having to use the bathrooms assigned to a certain gender due to lack of unisex bathrooms provided or unknown to the general public [Music] another student says as a student of strathaven high school i feel that i should have a right to explore my identity however due to the fact that the bathrooms are specifically designated to a specific gender i feel pressured into being a female as a school

046that claims to be a safe haven for students of all gender identities and sex this is completely inappropriate and goes against everything that shhhs claims to stand with it is not only inconvenient to the general school populist for the gender-neutral bathrooms to be locked it is unfair and uncomfortable to the rest of the student body that might need these bathrooms to affirm their genders as a student at strathaven high school who also identifies as genderfluid i am personally impacted by the school's failure to integrate students of all genders and gender non-conforming you don't see people forcing a person who identifies as female to use the men's restroom or vice versa for school who claims to be inclusive we aren't doing a very good job of proving it if you truly believe in support and queer

047youth as strathaven it's time that people live up to their word uh says another student it's me okay all right uh hi as previously said my name is carolyn esquenazi um this is what i wrote um and i'm choosing to say my name and this is my testimony um i want to preface this by saying that i am non-binary and need to use a gender-neutral bathroom or or unisex bathroom in the beginning of the school year i asked about having the option to use a gender-neutral bathroom i have routinely checked third floor unisex bathrooms located at the end of the hall next to the auditorium and found that it was locked i'd heard of times when one was unlocked but never encountered it myself being unlocked when i asked an administrator i was told after

048a couple days that i could use the bathroom in the nurse's office ever since then i've been using the nurse nurse's office when i need to use the restroom um this means that i am spending 10 minutes of my whenever of my time to go to the bathroom to be clear um when i asked about unlocking the unisex bathrooms i was told quote were working on it that was in the fall uh sometime around september slash october i did not hear a response back without having to ask for it again uh reply reflecting back to that time in the fall i felt that i needed to extensively reason why i needed to use a single stall bathroom and while that may not put me in an uncomfortable dangerous situation because i am not pretty much

049out to anyone in my life it poses exclusionary restriction to those who are not out so those are just some of the experiences as you can tell there are really no good options for gender non-conforming students but we're not just here to tell you what's wrong uh we have some solutions that we've discussed as a club so we have some short-term solutions because we recognize that change is uh it's a journey so our requests for short-term solutions are to permanently unlock all gender-neutral restrooms in strathaven high school we are very grateful that some of them have been unlocked and that that is happening but we request that they don't be locked again because they've been locked unlocked yeah we request the uh the multi-floor hall passes are provided to allow students to go to the

050third floor gender neutral restrooms as their only gender neutral restrooms on the first i think there's one on the first floor and on the third floor and the hall passes within the high school are per floor so it's like you can't if you have a pass from the second floor you're not supposed to leave the second floor um and we also request that information about the location of gender-neutral bathrooms is provided we discussed this with dr hilden about what some ideas would be we had some ideas such as putting a map of the school with like here's where the cafeteria is the library the auditorium and also here are where some of the restrooms are because we don't want to specifically draw attention to it because we don't want students to feel outed walking to

051the gender neutral restrooms but we also want students to be aware of where they are as for long-term solutions we discussed the idea of keeping in mind a possibility of constructing single stall restrooms or designating multi-stall restrooms as gender-neutral in easily accessible locations so locations that don't take five minutes to walk there and back allowing students possibly access to the teacher's single stall restrooms in the coffee rooms we obviously agree that teachers deserve to have their own space they do so much for us however there are coffee rooms at the end of the hallway that say students do not enter and it has a staff bathroom that are single stall and a lot of the teachers use the multi-style bathrooms and most importantly designating gender-neutral restrooms in every wssd building we we view this as

052a district-wide issue and as high school students our main focus is the high school because that's what we have experience with that's what we know but we feel strongly that gender-neutral bathrooms are necessary in all wssd schools and buildings um we also like to suggest possible district policy review and modifications so looking at our policy and saying how outdated is this what can we change to make it more inclusive can we add things about providing gender neutral restrooms in every school and we request that in future discussions about construction and gender neutra sorry gender-neutral bathrooms the middle school and elementary schools be taken into consideration as well and so we'd like to address the budget concerns as well because we understand that building new bathrooms is not cheap however multiple teachers have informed us that

053the school uh chat haven high school originally planned to begin building single stall and gender neutral locker rooms before the pandemic and we understand that covid has drastically affected wssd's priorities and budget capabilities but ask that this issue this issue is revisited or planned to be revisited and that trans and non-binary students are given a voice in this process that's really important to us in conclusion the lack of accessible gender-neutral restrooms goes against both wssd and federal policies using a gender affirming restroom should not be a privilege but a right in order to be inclusive wssd needs accessible gender-neutral bathrooms and much more needs to be done in terms of dei work in wssd we all know that but improving the gender-neutral bathroom situation is an important start in making wssd more inclusive for trans

054and non-binary students thank you so much for your time we really appreciate it they i wanted to thank you guys for all for coming and for sharing all that you shared um for thinking through it so comprehensively um i did want to put you on the spot dr marseille and ask about the remaining bathrooms that are still locked and are you able to answer like what it will take for us to be able to unlock um i can't answer that for you right now um i don't think bathroom should be locked but i know that there's been conversations at the high school level in terms of remedying that um i know that when this first came to my attention at one of the student council meetings i was taken aback at the stories of the

055students and did find out in my walk through that um four reasons defined rooms were locked and uh that's foreign to me so i asked to review that um and then gsa approached me and said hey um whatever you're reviewing ain't working because we still got a problem and i said well let's sit down and try to navigate this and they spoke about some of those and said we um we want an audience and i said i um i love when students um are able to come with a um with a true uh vision and intentionality in terms of identifying concerns and then i love when they're able to give us solutions that's even better um for us as well so um i can uh begin to address the other remaining areas that are locked

056um effective uh effective tomorrow thank you for that chris walkman i can tell you that with our meeting with dr hilden we were informed that there was a i think a safety concern because there were deadbolt locks on to the restrooms and we were told that there needed to be a locksmith we weren't given a timeline though we don't really know when that's happening when we should expect access to those restaurants thank you um we'll we'll certainly follow up i i heard about this um this evening as soon as someone got home from school too so the other um piece that i i just i haven't actually shared this with you previously but i'm glad that you guys talked about the other schools as well um my daughter who is in elementary school um shared

057with me a story out of nowhere just recently about needing to get the the um pass and something about trying they couldn't find the girls bathroom pass um and i am aware that she has a friend in her classroom actually i don't know if they're in the classroom but she has a friend who is gender non-conforming and you know i know that we usually talk about these things at the high school level but we have students in the elementary school level as well that need to have a safe and welcoming place according to their gender identity as well so i appreciate very much that you spoke about it at all of our schools because i i think that is an issue across the board and i i would like as we look at policies and

058practices to evaluate are we still using practices of here's the girls pass and here's the voice pass um that's not consistent with our values as well so thank you again for coming to does anyone else on the board have a question that i would like to i do just first of all i mostly just want to say thank you so much for presenting you guys did a really excellent presentation and i really appreciated it and so i just want to thank you um and it's a really important topic so it was you know we don't know what we don't know so it's really important when people see issues to come and come speak um i had a quick small question um you talked about the locking of the bathrooms in the distance um are they

059also like are they cleaned and maintained as well so when they're unlocked yeah because we we don't always have access to those so we couldn't tell you for some of them um in terms of the ones that i've been in uh i'm a part of the tech crew and we because it's close to the stage sometimes we'll have access to them um they're they're fairly clean they're i mean considering the state of the of the binary bathrooms i think they're fine um but there are like boxes of banned uniforms in one of them um so some of them are like used for storage as well so in terms of like organized i would say no in terms of like cleanliness about what you would expect at a school bathroom it's difficult to tell if they're

060clean because they're being cleaned or if they're clean because they haven't been used you know okay thank you and again thank you so much for coming thank you thank you for your time so uh we'll move then to your middle school update yes but i have a question um dr mccullough is miss reilly in the audience or i'm sorry i didn't recognize you we're going back and forth seeing if you were there please do you want to come and say some words i thought you i did not recognize you in the audience so please come up yes i'm so sorry i i promise when these come off oh now i can see the face [Laughter] good evening my name is franny reilly and i am president of the foundation for wellingford sophomore schools and i

061am here with my colleague beth ross who is the vice president on behalf of the foundation we're here this evening because as dr mccullough spoke we are pleased that the foundation um is going to be donating in furtherance of our commitment to students mental health we feel that this is an incredibly important initiative now more than ever um so for that reason the foundation is giving to the district 3 900 in support of the pbis program so um i just wanted to uh you know to acknowledge that the foundation is able to fund these projects through our successful fundraisers such as the panther pajama run which was held this past year on november 13th and the show the love campaign which is currently ongoing through our facebook page corporate sponsorships and individual contributions so the

062foundation is an independent nonprofit 501 c 3 organization that supports innovation and excellence throughout the wallingford swarthmore school district through community involvement and support the foundation works in partnership with all of the district funding partners to strengthen all of the district schools from elementary through middle and high school levels with increasing pressure on school funding the foundation's goal is to provide both a mechanism for community engagement with our schools and a funding stream for innovative programs and student enrichment which might otherwise fall short to budget cuts if anyone would like to learn about the foundation's efforts please reach out to me and with that we'd just like to present you with the check yes okay thank you very much oh i can see we handed that check over quickly to the business uh administrator who

063handles all funds um thank you um so uh dr manseka please um you have your uh your dream team here uh thanks for their uh for their patience uh this evening but love to hear about the wonderful things happening at uh at the middle school yeah first off i'd like to commend them members of gsa uh it's amazing seeing middle school students that i knew as sixth graders uh being active at the high school uh i'm not surprised to see zoe here uh being active and and leading the charge so uh commend you on all your all your work um uh good evening uh i'd like to thank the school board and dr merced uh for having the middle school here tonight we've had a great first half of our school year and we're very

064excited to share what's been taking place at the middle school i have a pretty large group with me here tonight my awesome assistant principals mr buechler mr crawler here along with two of our teacher leaders mrs michelle divini and ms samantha heart who already uh had an opportunity to speak earlier um i also have some pretty cool kids uh with me here tonight uh seventh grader mar a lot and sixth graders alex garfall and ian jacobs a lot of amazing things have been happening since september we've had two successful sports seasons in-person concerts a great mlk day of service and recently a live production of the addams family which was the first in-person musical in 709 days i counted that myself so has to be accurate we've had woop bam fun brewery and even dragons

065running through a hallway to kick off the start of the lunar new year and most importantly we've had students learning in person but tonight we'd like to discuss our pbs initiative which we call panther pride this continuation this is the continuation of the work that dr mccullough started at our elementary schools just happens that we had a was not planned um this is an issue that we're very proud of and believe will have a lasting impact on our students and our overall school culture i have to point this somewhere are they blocking all right so what is panther pride it is our version of positive behavior interventions and supports it is a framework for establishing school-wide expectations for students and staff through this framework we've established a proactive system for tracking student behavior acknowledging appropriate

066behavior and developing and implementing interventions to address unwanted behaviors it is a system to strengthen our overall school culture last summer our pbs core team comprised of teachers and administrators developed our framework our expectations are based on four domains stay safe stay responsible stay respectful and stay kind expectations for each domain have been defined on our panther prime matrix you can find this matrix throughout our school you can also find a similar matrix and specified locations throughout our school including the auditorium the cafeteria in hallways bathrooms and class classrooms each matrix defines expectations for each area so you'll find smaller a smaller matrix in the auditorium that just specifies expectations for appropriate behavior in the auditorium same thing in classrooms so it's very defined for for our students for this school year our work has

067been focused on developing tier one supports tier one supports impact all students in our school we have developed a special schedule that we run twice a month where panther pride lessons are taught we are now using schoolwide expectations as part of our panther of the month recognition program where each month teachers choose students whose behavior reflects the expectations found in our matrix we've developed the panther pride student committee three members are here tonight and is open to all of our students we've become data driven in developing our system or excuse me developing our panther pride lessons by using the pbs application known as swiss swiss is a school-wide information system our staff reports behaviors in swiss to collect data on school-wide trends that gives our pbs core team the data needed to plan school-wide lessons

068to then address these behaviors at this time i'd like to bring up mrs davini and miss hart who are teacher leaders of our pbs core team to talk about lessons activities and our ticket system hi everyone again so during the lessons the teachers instruct the students on the schoolwide matrix expectations the staff teaches two lessons per month and these are responses to the data collected through swiss the team looks at the data and determines where our needs lie for example in early january we engaged in a lesson involving classroom expectations that was a reminder for students coming back after winter break we also include social emotional lessons like kindness empathy and social awareness just last week three of our staff members carly flanagan meredith o'neill and karen hurt put together a lesson on kindness disability

069conversation this shows our wide range of topics and staff involvement the tickets are distributed to students by staff members throughout randomly throughout the day for being safe responsible respectful and kind the tickets are collected each week and entered into a grade level drawing where students can win a prize many prizes have been donated from the home and school association families and community members we've given out many tangible items as well experiences like gift cards spirit wear the student lounge and lunch with the principal our first panther pride event was the september kickoff this special day was dedicated to all things pbis each period of the day the students learned the expectations for different locations in the middle school we also held our very first raffles during grade level assemblies the mid-year kickoff occurred january 31st

070the goal of this event was to review and reinforce the panther pride matrix we did this by playing bingo in connections students watched a video created by the multimedia club which recapped panther pride memories from the first semester student winners were announced all day and some very special prizes were awarded to three random bingo winners to show our appreciation for all their support of panther pride february 14th was dedicated to recognizing and thanking staff members staff were chosen randomly and the winners were announced each period it was a fun day filled with students celebrating the staff and last but certainly not least the most the most popular event student raffles every other week five tickets from each grade are drawn and winners are revealed during the morning announcements since the raffles are cumulative a student

071who earns a ticket is entered into all raffles for that marking period the 15 winners are not only verbally recognized during the announcements but also choose a prize student raffle days are very exciting at the middle school so at this time i'm going to ask students from our pbi student committee to come up and speak a little bit about panther pride so i asked them to talk about two things one what is the work that they've been doing as part of the panther pride committee and how's panther pride impacted our school culture and our students so we had uh there was a debate who was going to go first so way to step up um thank you very much and can you hear me okay just to let's go so hello my name is alex

072garfield i'm a current sixth grader at strathaven middle school um the panther pride student committee is working to amplify the effects of panther pride through our actions such as redecorating the student lounge collecting the panther pro paw envelopes that are then entered into the raffle and then help being more recently helping to plan the marketing period to panther panther pride kickoff the panther pride student committee has been working to increase enthusiasm up here at the pride across the entire school as far as i can see that that has been successful the goal of the student committee is to be increasing participation in panther pride which is also been successful throughout the year adapting to change is oftentimes difficult and there has definitely been a transition to adjusting to the experiences of the sorry expectations of

073the panther pride initiative the reward system makes it possible to get some quite nice rewards to student lounge access and gift cards for doing simple good deeds day by day i still see the school changing for the better and i believe that over time the panther pride matrix will become an integral part of our school community and positively improve the school experience thank you very much so um i am ian jacobs i am in sixth grade currently um uh and yeah um we have assisted in making a presentation to reinforce panther pride we have also worked on reinvigorating the student lounge so that involves hooking up electronics adding new lights putting up pictures adding a chalkboard and flowing with them with as many fun activities as we could that was actually the first project we

074did panther pride has reinforced some old rules that many children will likely say are not fun however cancer pride has given kids a more emphasized rule set as every other wednesday we have a lesson on part of what being panther prideful is about to make it more engaging the school has been using panther paws as a reward system if you follow the planter pride expectations you get one of the tickets which you can use in a lottery to get rewards this has probably made it more preferable on among certain certain groups of students [Music] hello my name is amara la and i'm currently a 7th grader at chad haven middle school the panther pride committee has given the school more of a sense of stability by saying this i mean more kids are being nice

075and respectful towards each other and teachers i personally see more smiles walking out of school and fewer issues than students the panther pride committee has created a student lounge where the winner of the raffle can sit and watch tv play video games read or just talk with friends the raffle is some something that we do every friday members of the committee get assigned connections classrooms to collect the ticket the panther pride tickets these tickets are awarded for students who showcase kindness respect responsibility and safety all the tickets are put into a ballot and five students from each grade are picked that's not the best part though the best part is that the ballot is not emptied until the end of that marking period all of the previous week's tickets stay so that each student has

076a greater chance of winning prizes i know how hard it is to stand up here the three of you did a wonderful job so great great job [Applause] yeah and they keep talking about the student lounge you'll see that as a recurring theme um uh so uh what what i want to end with uh is a short video that was created uh a few weeks ago we did uh mid-year surveys for panther pride uh so throughout this video you're gonna hear from some of our students and you're gonna see some other direct direct quotes from the survey about what they think about our school and about panther prime [Music] hi i'm harry we asked several students the following questions about panther pride they are one what does panther pride mean to you and two what

077does panther pride mean to our school here's what they said to me panther pride means treating everybody with respect and kindness and not being mean to them even if they're different than you panther pride means to me um like treating everyone with kindness and like just being yourself to me panther pride means that we as individuals work hard cooperate and show kindness to our peers to me personally panther pride means giving every day my very best being my best self to my friends my peers my teachers and to myself at the forefront it means to always be kind we never know what the people around us are going through if we're all kind to one another we create a place where everyone wants to bang [Music] oh [Music] i feel like to our school panther

078pride means that everyone acts respectful to one another and we as a school community work together creating a safe environment to learn [Music] in regards to our school i believe panther pride means that strathaven middle school is a place where everyone feels accepted and has value we all are unique beings with our own successes challenges joys and hardships for our school panther pride is creating a safe place where all its people come every day to work together as a team and help one another it represents a community accepting of everyone [Music] so you see throughout the video some uh students wearing the t-shirt that ian has on every every student um uh received that t-shirt um and on pride days special days we wear them and the logos there on the on the side uh

079i swear i did not write any of that like our kids said all of that which goes to show first off how amazing our kids are in our middle school and the impact that our panther pride program is is having on the school uh we're still at the starting line we have a ton of work to do uh but we're off we're off to a pretty a pretty good start and we're really proud of our kids proud of our staff um and there's a lot of things going and i do have to give um a shout out to mr crawl in the multimedia club for for creating that video that was mostly done by our students and mr crawl put it put it together so um does anybody have any any questions not a question

080but i just wanted to thank you guys for coming um particularly our students and talking to us i it is it's hard to get in front of that microphone so great job on doing that and i never thought you guys would make me want to go back to middle school but i think that maybe after watching that i should so uh thank you so much for coming tonight rachel yeah i just wanted to say i've heard about the the um the panther pride like the the room but i hadn't seen a lot about it before so it's really good to to have seen some pictures of it and understand the the place that it you know that it holds in the in the middle school and with the students and things like that i can

081see why it is so enticing yeah yeah we're still working on how to use it more it's uh we've we've been in discussion so any other questions yeah i just wanted to thank everyone for coming especially our two teachers up there thank you so much for all your work and nice job kids and the one question i did have for dr mensanka though is one of the is is lunch with the principal a reward i'm gonna tell you right i just throw it up there it's not true it's not it was in the beginning it was and it's not the most popular the lounge was not done at that point so other things are being chosen now so yeah all right thank you so much [Applause] thank you thank you thank you mr fox yeah

082i think so um at this time i think we have mr fox but i don't oh okay um just like a safety and security advisor never know where he will be but he will always show up thank you dr marseille i i do not hide well so i can assure you that uh if you looked hard enough you to see me um for those of you that i had a chance to talk with before it's my pleasure to be here again for those of you that i haven't had a chance to talk to it's my pleasure to see you the first time um in safety there's one very common term that is redundancy the more you do something over and over again the better you become at it when the situation dictates so my for

083those of you that have seen this before my presentation will be redundant but at the end i'm certainly happy to take any unique questions or anything that might be new or for the first time experience for those of you that haven't seen it before my name is randy fox i had a privilege to be an elementary and secondary principal at all levels for 25 years i was also 10 years as a pennsylvania battalion one command officer and just at the harrisburg pennsylvania area i have my fema executive qualifications i have my homeland security exercise and evaluation program graduate and i for it was my privilege prior to my current position to serve as the director of the center for safe schools pennsylvania uh it was such a pleasure to be at your district just i

084met some really fantastic people it's beautiful it's very rare for me to see a district in a semi-urban setting even though it's suburban it's close to an urban area that had this much space around its land um that's it was amazing to see um a couple of positives that came out of the evaluation what a positive and engaging staff i mean at any time not to mention the children or the students if they were high school um but really just an engaging group of people um the administration was engaging i know what their job entails on a daily basis and they all took time to meet with me and i didn't feel rushed and they didn't appear rushed so i was very appreciative of that your buildings are very solid your entry points are well

085designed and you have very good hardware on your doors overall you have amazing grounds and space available to schools staff and students and again a very dedicated staff and administration committed to their students anytime we do a safety audit it doesn't matter what district it is there are positives but there are always growth areas in anything we do we want to learn from those growth areas and i'll go into that a little bit more i put zero cost growth areas at the top there because one of my major focuses in any event is to ensure that i'm providing low or no cost options right up front what can we do now to fix this quickly to take first steps and one of those first steps is redundant communication of the message redundant communication of the

086overall themes because i've pulled a staff i could pull staff into a room and tell them that this wall is blue and if it were really blue by noon i would have 10 to 15 people telling me he said it's a different color it's okay it's human nature but i'm recommending that we create a system for daily exterior door checks open doors prop doors was a common theme in the district remember what one of the positives was you have excellent door hardware let's use it zero cost initiative to do that let's establish bi-weekly grounds inspections you'll hear me throughout my work with the district talk about crime prevention through environmental design if an area looks well supervised people are going to think that it is if an area looks like it has trash around it

087or receptacles that are overflowing or certain problems with bushes and things like that it's going to present the opinion that it's not well supervised again a very low cost option for improvement number three is probably the lowest cost option because there could be a door lock that needs replaced there could be a door lock that's malfunctioning or it breaks during the year eliminate the propping of exterior doors remove door propping devices and remove devices from exterior view if a person of ill will sees a device that could be used for a door propping situation that tells them at some point during the day if not multiple points that door is propped remove those from sight from the inside from the outside excuse me if we use the hardware and that two inch steel thick door

088the way it was designed to be used we eliminate a hazard up front with no cost these are things we can do very quickly and consistent visitor management procedures i have used this example with your administrators when i come into a building i always have my id my driver's license in my shirt pocket i do that because if i'm asked for it i instinctively pull it out of my shirt pocket and i put it in my right pocket i selected a random building today it remained in my shirt pocket so and at times during these visits it still remained in my shirt pocket now remember people knew i was coming right but we can do that we can establish a consistent visitor management procedure we can all follow it we can we can coach we

089can positively reinforce but at some point we do say this is the way we're going to do it because we love our kids we love our community we're going to use the tools that our buildings give us to keep them safe so we established a couple of broad next steps in fact mary and i work today to go into greater detail those next steps and we'll be communicating those soon but let's establish and communicate the safety vision and that's why i'm doing this presentation again for some of you for others it's the first time but i'd be willing to bet it's not the last time some of us hear it because the more you hear a message the more it gets through i used to love it when somebody came up to me and said

090randy i've got it i've heard you you don't have to tell me again boy is that a lot better than when somebody comes up to you and tells you i don't know what you're talking about i've never heard that before made me happy so establish a healthy sense of urgency i am not a panicked person i will not market based on panic in fact my group and i knew them for years working with safe schools i went with them because they refused the market based on a negative event that happens and i can tell you they probably give up a lot of business that way but there is an incredible difference between a sense of panic and a healthy sense of urgency i want to help you build that i want to help wallingford swarthmore

091school district build that because a successful repetitive climate over time leads to an ingrained culture of doing things in a different way and i've heard that term tonight change it's not easy it's never easy mine is easier than some of the change you're going to talk about because we're talking about items that can easily easily be started now and then we do a phase two and we build upon the successes that we have and we create and ride that wave of a healthy sense of urgency and empower our leaders to educate and prepare their staff do you know how many courses and administrator training and college they teach on how to train safety to your staff and every course i know of xero so it's not their fault let's help them let's empower them let's

092empower the district to take this and make this make me useless in the future make me where yourself is sustainable [Music] and i can help with that and evaluate and update building level all hazards emergency plans and create consistency i'll never forget one time and this is a real example i had a tornado coming to the east side of my building and it was visible and we saw it and we found out that two or three of our teachers were only on step seven of what to do during a tornado in their charts when the tornado hit the building now i'll say this everybody was okay they were fine at some point down the road several months later we had a laugh about it but again everybody was fine but the last thing you want

093is somebody reading a chart when it's time to really do it for real i've ran hundreds of command scenarios as a battalion one command officer i never got one of them 100 right but i got a whole lot of them 89 right and we didn't lose a firefighter and we helped a lot of people so next steps let's take a look at the building on the hazards plan it makes people nervous it's okay some of them may have some dust on it let's acknowledge it and just realize where we're at let's put them all together on a table if they're digitalized great if they aren't it's okay let's go through and find the consistencies then let's identify the inconsistencies and get people towards the same plan where whether it's wes or srs who will have

094their differences that they need to do things a little bit differently we help them seamlessly feed into the overall district plan because i've spent 16 court hearings where i was subpoenaed and the question is and should you what isn't what you did know it is should you have known so utilize professional development time to prepare and train staff we can use your existing time we will need some extra time but there are many times that we can use existing time that's already there so we don't stack additional plates on top of one another and i have ways that we can coach you on how to help that establish self-sustaining activities for staff to use through active thinking and learning active thinking very quick definition is learning from others put all your front office staff together

095coach them through a few scenarios let them listen to one another because my thinking isn't always the best and i've never been the smartest person in a room talking about an issue and i know i'm not the smartest person in the room here but by golly i bet i can learn from any of you and maybe you learn from something that i say that's the active learning that's the active listening and establish formal procedures to evaluate the success of benchmarks i've used this example in the past i had the most wonderful person i've ever worked with we still talk on christmas if not easter and different times during the year birthdays different grandkids things like that i don't have grandkids but she does which means she's so but she had she had a sad story

096in life but she couldn't follow a safety procedure she tried she worked through it i positively reinforced her i coached her i encouraged her she got my little notes so thank you so much for taking this little baby step but by golly it was for the safety of kids and at some point we got to it where i'm your supervisor i've done everything i can do this is what you're doing and on every thursday of every week we're going to sit down at 9 30 a.m and we're going to go over your performance guess what she never missed another safety procedure again and we're still lifelong friends so it certainly didn't do any damage for her and she kept a whole bunch of kids safe so she could feel good about herself so finally establish

097a district accountability plan by january 10th the 12th i performed an informal assessment for your district february 28th we're back friday it sounds as though i'll be back at some point we have to stand a progress benchmark we have to establish that i saw some things already today that i'm like wow that's different when i was here i saw some things that weren't different let's work to establish a benchmark with these items moving forward to set that stage for improvement and ultimately get to a path of sustainability for wallingford swarthmore because any district can do this with the right guidance but they need the right sense of urgency and the right overall mission the last time i did this i missed a slide so i'm hitting the button one more time we're good may i

098take any questions thank you uh i'll open up any members of the board kevin thanks randy have a comment and a question my comment first of all thank you i we spoke before and i mentioned this at the committee meeting but for the benefit of the rest of the board and people watching at home and i wish the teachers were i said some of our staff is over there but i wish the other staff was here is i really appreciated you in your report numerous times uh mentioning the pride and the uh how much the staff loved it and they told you how much they loved in their school so i really reading that your report thoroughly i read it again actually before this meeting skimmed it not as word for word as i did

099before just just to get kind of that that feeling of you know i love that our staff was like so i appreciate that thank you so i wish our teachers anyone at home could see that my question is can you just give us the benefit of the rest of the board and anybody watching just a short summary when of what crime prevention through design concept is sure cri if crime prevention through environmental design or septed as you'll hear me uh refer to it before has a very lengthy definition i'm going to give it to you in a simpler form it's the art of making people go where you want them to go and keep them away from where you don't want them to go without using force so for example i'm sure many of you

100have been to an amusement park a movie theater a restaurant what have you and they have these ropes and you go through them like a maze until you get to the person that takes your order or they put you on the ride that kind of thing there is nothing keeping me from going under that rope but guess what for some reason 99.9 percent of the people follow that rope that is crime prevention through environmental design when i walk into my bank my bank outside has these large intimidating cement bollards i swear they've been there since the prehistoric ages when i go into my bank they have aesthetically pleasing cement plants filled with these wonderful trees that get natural light and they gradually guide me in an s turn all the way up to the teller

101of my choice well the s turn delays me going right up to the teller giving their cameras and security more time to watch what i'm doing and guess what 99 99.99 of the people are really good people and they follow the planters of where they're supposed to be so when i look at this row of chairs i could jump over the back row jump over the front row to go up and shake dr marseille's hand for some reason i'm going to walk in that nice neat row other than being middle-aged and come down there to the front because that's a crime prevention through environmental design it's anything that is the art of making people where you go where you want them to go and keeping them away from where you're at you're welcome any other

102questions from board members yeah i want to thank mr fox because i think um the things that we had discussed in depth at the facilities finance meeting um [Music] so much of what you shared was around a cultural shift um which some of us know take a very long time but you identified low hanging fruit that um to your point repetition repetition as a as a former athlete and coach just you keep doing that drill over and over again to the point where it becomes a habit of mind and we look forward to a providing those opportunities for our staff and our students to have that type of muscle memory and obviously looking at long-term and some of the structural uh items as well so we really do appreciate um uh your expertise um not

103just uh for the immediate but this journey that we have to take um uh over the next several months over the next calendar year uh because as always we didn't get here overnight so it won't happen overnight but with consistent um uh repetition and practice we're going to be in a much much much better place than we are so i do appreciate your expertise and your willingness um to work with the district to unpack some of our findings thank you dr marseille i'm truly privileged to be here you have a wonderful place and when we see a wonderful place we want to help you get to the best place you can be thank you for your time thank you all right um that takes us to uh board announcements and first i'll note that the

104board met on february 12th in executive session uh to discuss personnel matters and then we have one item on the agenda this evening um dr merce i think you'd like to introduce this one related to the psba principles for governance and leadership yes um thank you uh mr walkman i in january i had shared with the board that january were school director recognition month um and in that recognition um we spoke to um really the role of the board and a reminder about our collective responsibility and psba publishes and documents principles of governance and leadership i shared that with the board in uh in january uh in terms of those core principles around advocating earnestly leading responsibly governor effectively plan thoughtfully evaluate continuously communicate clearly and act ethically those which in the framework in which

105um all of your decisions your inquiries your questions derived from so i i thought it'd be fitting for um for this board um to uh though we practice this officially adopt uh those principles of governments in leadership um and um because i'm extremely competitive and i go on the website and i don't see our district's name on the website i want to know why we're not there right everybody else is there right but it's not because we haven't been doing it but we want to um make sure that um we have the stamp of approval because i'm sure that's the way in which we've been looking at this work all of us all of you who are board members and the uh training that that you go through so i thought um it'd be a

106great opportunity to reaffirm uh those core principles by acknowledging and accepting these as our guideposts for a lack of better terms so there is a motion and recommendation that the board of school directors adopts the pennsylvania school board association principles of governance and in leadership so i will say i love having things in writing and we're going to sign our names uh to this uh because it makes makes a difference when you put your name against something um and and i i think that um first of all i want to thank you for for bringing it forward um as something that we should actually formally adopt um and and you know we've been we've been participating um with with so many new members on the board we've been participating in some professional development uh retreats

107that dr merce has put together and um you know working through and talking about many of these things and how do we put these into practice and uh i think it's something for us to continue to come back to much like we do in the policy meeting and we set our expectations about what is it that we're here to accomplish and we have those guide posts we should be talking about this on a regular basis in our in our board meetings um and in our our continuous professional development so um i think that uh you are actually looking for us to make a formal motion to adopt these yes and i still move do i have a second shall we give that too i heard it from the right first nanette uh okay any any

108comments um excuse me i you are going to need to because this is before the board meeting as a whole you are going to need to at least give the public the opportunity oh okay okay well shall we shall we represent it then following or we can adapt but we can take comments okay do we have any comments from the public can you go up to the can you go to the mic i'm sorry we have a very formal process for for comment you didn't know what you were getting into so if can you can you restate your name and the street on which you live sure my name is carolyn eskenazi i use he him pronouns i live on waterford way uh can i like talk like can i um present my own like

109public comment about like what specifically related to like what we talked about in the presentation you most certainly can i can take that um should we just move around yes and then that's audience recognition but yeah we're taking comment on the principles of government okay so then i will we'll call you right back up in just a moment thank you and um if you for right now we'll take it just specifically on the motion to adopt and then i'll invite you guys to come up for um comment on other items okay all right say no okay seeing none do um are there any comments from the board no okay um miss figueroa can you please take the roll call vote dr grandy aye mr henry aye ms holbert aye mr cutis aye ms vote i

110miss whitsett miss wikowski smith aye ms walkman aye the motion pass is eight to zero okay thank you all right that takes us then uh now this is our next audience recognition um section of the agenda but the first audience recognition portion of the agenda is for items that we vote on this evening um and and we have a separate portion um later in the in the meeting for items that aren't voting items but we invite public comment you know at that point for items that aren't an action for for vote um so do does anyone have comments uh for items that we are voting on this evening on the agenda okay i don't see any all right then we will move forward our next item yes okay um mr berman could i make a

111motion to allow our students to speak um on items not for action on the agenda so that they can get home at a reasonable hour absolutely you can you can change the order of operation here but you may if people wander in you just may need to give them an opportunity later as well okay then i would like to make a motion to allow our students to offer comment for items that are not on the agenda this evening for action it's a motion to amend the agenda i make a motion to amend the agenda and move that up to now do i need to ask for uh okay do is there a second is there a second okay all those in favor aye aye okay you may now if you as you approach if you

112will state your name and the street on which you live uh hi i'm jillian thomas and i live on harvard avenue um okay and then can i just yes the average person goes to the bathroom about six to eight times a day and for most people it's a pretty automated task especially at school you take the hall pass you go to the bathroom and you come back but sometimes it's not that simple for trans and non-binary youth it is often an anxiety-filled event especially for teens whose gender does not correlate with male or female it is a task simply to decide what bathroom they feel most comfortable using trans and non-binary individuals already face discrimination and harassment in many aspects of their lives with 2021 checking in as the year with the highest amount of

113discrimination and violence against transgender people on record so it is the bare minimum that we offer them a bathroom that they feel safe using however beyond our high school it is equally crucial that we implement policies that allow gender non-conforming and transgender students of all ages to feel safe in their schools gender expression and identity are present throughout these students lives and by allowing them access to comfortable restrooms from an early age we are actively affirming their identities this summer my summer camp started the conversation about gender-neutral bathrooms and while no progress was made there i see this as an opportunity to continue not only this conversation but to put a plan into action the trevor project and lgbtq youth organization reports that trans youth have a 40 lower suicide rate if they have accepting

114adults in their lives so i implore you to be those accepting adults and help our administration be those adults to average children thank you thank you very much can you just uh once again state your name and uh the street on which you live thank you um hi uh my name is carolyn eskenaji i live on waterford way and i use hem pronouns i am a sophomore at stratheven high school i wanted to preface this that like before i came here i was very frustrated so this may come out as very i don't know aggressive sorry but also kind of not sorry because i'm still frustrated even after being happy to hear all these your support um so yeah while i would while what i am discussing today is related to the gsa uh what

115to what gsa previously presented this is on behalf of my experiences and opinions unless otherwise noted i'm here to talk about the lack of response and actual progress being made after the school or administration is asked by a student or group this is not the first time something like this has happened uh for example slash recap this is like basically recap what i had said here i'm non-binary i wanted to use the gender-neutral bathroom um lack of accessibility um single stall or stalled um there it forces people to be uh into a situation where they may need to unnecessarily out themselves to people that don't need to know um uh so again i had to i i asked an administrator to how what the routine was um on what was happening on unlocking the unisex

116bathroom um i was told like i said we're working on it again that was in september october um [Music] i was given uh the option to use a nurse's bathroom and i while i deeply appreciate that appreciate that and i use it every single time i need to use the restroom it is not accessible it is forcing a student out themselves i need to reiterate this because it's so important um because i know many people who would appreciate it without having to help themselves and potentially out themselves to their parents which could pose themselves in a very dangerous situation especially the people i know um i did not hear a response back without asking for it again i have to reiterate this this may be different and i may have not known but i wish

117that people maybe told me that they were working on it i did i i felt that i was being ignored and dismissed um i think a lot of my peers also felt they were being ignored and dismissed after i talked about this stuff again i did not hear your back four months with no feedback response or progress i had to bring up the idea in january in a gsa meeting to go to a school board meeting because nothing was being done gsa had to do hours of research i wonder how many months it would have been until they actually started to unlock unisex bathrooms if we hadn't uh asked for a meeting this is unacceptable when a group or student brings up an issue uh we shouldn't be met with nothing but we were and

118i hear so many that do one variety on a wide variety of different issues i wish that i wish this would change um and i talk to adults or students about making change in schools um like adequate access to gender-neutral bathrooms something along the lines of carolyn they're not going to do anything or they never do is something that is a very common something to that i hear um it's heartbreaking because i wish it wasn't like that um while saint months like sorry that's uh this isn't just about gender neutral bathrooms this is about a wide variety ah i'm done okay change it change the gut feeling that i when i stop singing speaking i'm gonna come out and i'm gonna be ignored please change that gut feeling that i have because um i'm not

119the only one i don't think so change how this this district responds please and thank you thank you for your comments do we have um other comments to see me no not so no i was just asking if we had any further no no no you're fine thank you um if you could just state your name in your street now i'm jonathan washington any pronoun an srs parent and i live on elm avenue and swarthmore um regarding the masking policy i would advocate for at least a more conservative transition threshold for masking the use of better and non-self-reported metrics and additional efforts to improve ventilation in schools but i'm most disappointed by the board's lack of consideration of the most vulnerable among us the lack of transparency in the process the double standards and your

120unwillingness to listen in terms of the process why is the health and safety plan not been voted on since august there was very careful discussion of it this summer down to minor details weighed individually they were approved unanimously the entire plan has been overhauled since then without public discussion by the board of or any sort of public vote to the contrary there's been unanimous lack of dissent not many of you have district children with medical conditions that put them at increased risk of severe illness from cove 19 or loved ones who are still not eligible to be vaccinated and you're failing to take into account the perspectives of those who do as a committed as a committee you are lacking certain dimensions of diversity making decisions by groupthink and ignoring other perspectives unsurprisingly the result

121is an exclusionary policy masking is a matter of equity and inclusion and this district is failing um this district is full of parents who are qualified to offer specialist guidance from public health experts to physicians to mental health professionals many of them are trying to tell you that you are too quick to implement this policy shift that your metrics need adjustment there's more you could be doing to ensure safety in the schools but you haven't given them a forum who better to offer insight on these matters than credential district parents why not let their expertise and experience factor into your decisions the use of self-reported building level level case counts puts an even stronger incentive on under-reporting positive results parents don't want their kids to be the reason the school shuts down so they aren't

122reporting their positive coveted tests you can fix this use county level data of course our district isn't perfectly represented in those numbers but it's a baseline provided by epidemiologists tracking the pandemic in a more agnostic way not family self-reporting to a school nurse i'm also disappointed by the messaging why is the process to indicate to the school that your child will remain masked even with no policy changes making masking opt out rather than opt-in would make a huge difference and reframing the messaging to masks encouraged as opposed to masks optional would be a big step towards greater equity i'm also curious why the school isn't considering even informal accommodations for those with conditions that make them more vulnerable something as simple as reseeding students so that someone with lung disease can be around consistently masked

123peers students with conditions that preclude mask wearing have received exemptions under the former masking policy so why can't others uh why can't other accommodations be made for students whose conditions require masking around them how many children would have to suffer severe illness from covet contracted at school how many family members would have to die from it for you to consider this policy the wrong decision or will you hold your ground even in the face of death and suffering in the district this is a rhetorical question although i doubt any of you will actually respond this is not a rhetorical question finally if the question is about not if masks become optional uh but when then why the rush according to the pennsylvania aap just last week taking away masking a little bit late has far

124fewer negative and terrible consequences than removing masking a little too early give it a little more time thank you thank you any further uh comments from the public okay thank you very much for coming all right let's go back to our agenda all right next up on the agenda is uh next item fraction then is our minutes and we have the approval of the january 24th 2022 regular business meeting minutes do i have a motion and do i have a second all second any uh comments all right uh mr fagora will you please take a roll call miss holbert hi mr cutis hi miss vote hi miss whitsett miss mikowski smith aye dr grandy aye mr henry aye ms walkman aye the minutes pass eight to zero okay thank you next up we have um

125board committee reports and we have many uh so we'll begin with educational affairs uh mr henry i believe you're providing that one thank you all right so i'm going to read the uh the minutes from the educational affairs committee that we held um at the beginning of the month february 2nd and thanks to everyone who showed up uh board members as well as a number of members of the public as well there were three agenda items on our educational affairs committee uh the curriculum audit launch the communication audit and the equity audits it was a nice uh robust discussion over all three items the curriculum audit launch we at the the wellingford swathmore school district partnered with a company called cmsi to conduct a curriculum audit including a gifted program audit dr citroelle jones gave

126an overview of the various components of the curriculum audit and explained the foundational principles of cmsi when conducting a curriculum audit cmsi engages in a system level approach to investigate and explore the alignment of the written taught and tested curriculum as it relates to student learning in addition to a review of a wide array of documents spanning all departments in the school district cmsi auditors will gather data for interviews surveys and classroom visits to inform their findings quantitative and qualitative data gathering is expected to last from january to april and cmsi is scheduled to submit their report in may and the committee and the public had a number of questions regarding the outreach the community outreach and how the classroom visits worked and it was a nice uh discussion over that that are we also

127discussed how the wallingford swarthmore school district is looking into a communication audit to assess the effect effectiveness of current communication practices gaps that exist and how to best improve our communication efforts dr marseille explained the impact and need for a clear robust communication system that reaches every intended our target audience in a proactive and engaging way he spoke about strategic communication and branding because through communication it's a school district tells its story and its identity dr marseille presented three companies that conduct communication audits and provided information on the service each of them provide he also conveyed the scope of work namely a review of the current practices focus groups interviews surveys that they used to collect data for analysis last but not least he gave insights into the range of costs for a communication audit

128in the timeline and final report we then discussed all the various kind of options that were presented to different companies what they could do what they wouldn't do what we what we wanted them to do what we what priorities we had finally we discussed the equity audit and dr mozakowski gave an update on the equity audit the school district has been engaged within with uh hanover research since october of last year we are in the final stages of the equity audit at the beginning of february the wssd administration team facilitated focus groups with middle school and high school students to gather insights into the perceptions and perspectives of equity in their schools also the wssd administration team participated in equity focus groups led by dciu personnel data from these focus groups will be part of

129the equity audit findings the administrative team will be unpacking these reports provided by hanover research and representatives from hanover research will be presenting their finance findings at the next scheduled educational affairs committee which is this wednesday the second at seven o'clock in the middle school and i encourage anyone interested to please attend cultural proficiency work is tied to the reasons we are engaged in an equity audit and our commitment to set a plan of action based on the findings of the audit dr marseille explained the interconnectedness and impact of the school environment on students identities in teaching and learning provided supporting resources such as the cultural proficiency continuum and information from the pde equity hub website dr marseille presented a framework to deliver support and sustain cultural proficiency work in our school district he went

130over the different tiers of the framework that involved district administrators building administrators cultural proficiency teacher leaders and student ambassadors the cultural proficiency teacher leaders will be wssd teachers who apply for this posting and will be compensated with a supplemental stipend to lead this work in their buildings while working collaboratively with the administrative team the framework is designed to be a practical comprehensive and sustainable ecosystem that fosters belonging and inclusion among all stakeholders within the school district dr marseille reiterated the importance of giving space and time to teachers administrators families and students in an intentional and focused way for cultural proficiency to become an integral integral part of the wssd ecosystem and uh we discussed the action but most of the the committee members in school board attended the focus group so we talked about how

131good they were and how well they were handled and how well run they were i was the lucky participant in dr marseille's focus group so i am sure our focus group was the best but i am competitive that way so those were really good we had a nice discussion about uh the next steps so just a reminder the next educational affairs committee meeting is this wednesday march the 2nd at 7 p.m in the high school and then sorry to middle school and i encourage anyone to attend please thank you thank you very much mr henry uh next up uh we have facilities and finance mr cutis i believe you're giving that report yes i am uh the wallingford swarthmore school district facilities committee met on february 16th in the middle school committee members present we're

132dr grande rachel holbert kevin henry and myself other board members attending we're kelly wagman jennifer lenz wendy vote and mary jo witasky smith administration present were dr marseille mary martin mary fergurt and aj citroni peter clablende presided after approving the minutes of the january 19th meeting the committee received two two presentations one covering district physical physical security uh which we heard from randall fox tonight so i will spare you those details i can't do them any better um aj cetroni the district's director of informational technology briefed the committee and administration on the current and planned it infrastructure connected devices and maintenance to include short-term upgrades and long-term replacements mr kabundi gave you an update of the 2021 2000 capital capital projects currently underway the high school secure entrances is still awaiting two security windows temporary

133glasses in place longford's elementary partial roof replacement has been awarded and materials ordered the contractor has warned the district of a long lead time for the roof insulation panels estimated to be six months the replacement for the malfunctioning swimming school board has been ordered and delivery is imminent open skies application for the solar panel project has been approved by pico and materials are now being procured mr kabundi reviewed the proposed 2021-2012 projects being investigated and developed by operations the trinity window and roof replacements at swarthmore rutledge elementary electrical and lighting controls integration exterior structural crack repairs and the turnstile installation at the middle school repair auditorium sound controls the marquis sign and access controls at the high school kingfield ada modifications asphalt maintenance uh auditorium lighting and sound controls marquee sign and locker room renovation

134design mr clabundi talked about needed capital funds and provided some information he had gathered on grants incentives and rebates currently are about to be become available the guaranteed energy savings act uses future savings help fund current projects the 2021 infrastructure investment in jobs act includes 500 million for school facility improvements that reduce school energy costs and 5 billion for clean school buses 550 million in energy efficiency conversation block grants for school building envelope hvac systems lighting power and controls of the building and pico phase 4 phase of act 129 rebates of 10 cents per kilowatt hour mr clundy along with mary martin will continue to investigate all alternative sources of funding for capital projects as well as performance contracting for you efficient use of funds lastly uh as part of the facilities meeting a resident

135of swarthmore attended to express concern that playground equipment that the resident and our neighbor's purchase and currently being utilized by katie's might be disposed with kd's plans to build a new playground that concluded the facilities committee meeting uh next following was the wallingford swarthmore school district finance committee also met on february 16th after the facilities committee committee concluded again committee members present where dr grandi rachel holbert kevin henry and myself the other board members attending were kelly wagman jennifer lentz wendy vogt mary jo whis and mary jo wotaski smith administration present where dr marseille peter kobundy mary fedura and aj citroni mary martin presided minutes from the january 9th meeting were approved miss martin presented a chart with summary of all coveted related grants the remaining funds left to be received during 2021 2022 and

1362022 and to was highlighted including how the district will be allocating easter two and eastern three funds totaling two million one hundred and sixty four thousand two hundred and eighty seven mary figure provided background on the two grants including specific restrictions on easter 3 funds ms martin indicate that the allocations of the two grants is based on past present and future expenditures it was noted that the majority of the grants will be allocated to personal expenses incurred in 2020 and 2021 and for this reason this portion will be received by the district free or further requirement to spend other allocations address the need for nursing and behavioral health resources and other programs to address learning laws next ms martin reviewed the current budget status for 2022 2023 noting the most recent analysis indicates a revenue

137projection of 91 million save 723 486 and projected expenditures of 92 million thousand 770 hundred and thirty seven dollars leaving a projected deficit of one million forty six thousand seven hundred fifty one dollars miss martin continues to search for additional ways to reduce the projected expenditures finally ms martin brought up items for discussion ahead of the approval actions during tonight's school board meeting that the next facilities and finance committee meetings are march 16th at 7 pm in room b 226 of the middle medical of the middle school please attend if possible thank you mr cootis uh next up we have policy and i think uh mrs lutkowski smith thank you these are the minutes summer and summary from the policy committee meeting on january 26 2022 on january 26 2022 the policy committee and members

138of the community were invited to meet room b 226 strathaven middle school at 7 p.m in attendance were board meeting chairs miss pakowski smith miss walkman miss holbert and miss lentz administrative chairs present where dr ake little and dr sandberg our superintendent of schools dr marseille was there as well as our solicitor mr berman the minutes from the december 26 22nd meeting were approved 3-0 with one abstention as usual dr ake little started the meeting by discussing the norms and protocols for the committee and solicited preliminary feedback about the general process there was discussion about the order of presentation of policies and the committee agreed that policies up for consideration could be discussed and revised in any order if necessary policy 239 relating to international students was discussed for a second and final reading before

139it was put forward to the full board of directors at the at the next legislative meeting for a final vote some discussion took place about the language in the policy that allows the district to maintain adequate programming without the need to increase staffing in the event that we have increased enrollment of students taking part in an exchange program a revision to the set time frame for students to apply was made in an attempt to better notify students who are taking part in the exchange programs policy 239 following these revisions was approved by the committee and put forward to the full board of directors for a vote at the next board meeting a subset of policy 239 specifically 239.1 relating to non-resident students was looked at by the policy committee for the first time and the

140committee recommended its repeal the committee asked about the rationale for the creation of the original policy and the administrative team along with the solicitor agreed to make sure prior to the committee officially moving for its repeal to rule out any ways which it still might have relevance policy 104 was also examined as a first reading of the policy this policy relates to equal opportunity and non-discrimination in employment practices the committee sought clarification on the person designated as the title ix coordinator and agreed to change the wording to indicate that the director of human resources would serve as the title ix coordinator also clear steps outlining a model of progressive discipline were requested from the administrative team in preparation for the next policy meeting the goal is to inform the committee's future discussions about instances when

141the law is violated and how that may relate to discrimination in the workplace response to complaints and preventing retaliation policies discussed for a third reading meaning the committee has already examined them at two prior meetings included policy zero zero three zero zero five and zero zero nine policy zero zero nine was recommended for repeal policy zero zero three was amended at a previous committee meeting to include wording from policy zero zero nine relating to board operations which is why policy zero zero nine was now being recommended for repeal in addition policy zero zero three talks about the functions of the board and as policy zero zero three used to read it required that the board have three public readings of a policy prior to its adoption the revision of policy 003 changes that three readings

142requirement to two readings this means that it allows the board to recommend policies for adoption after two readings or edits rather than three the rationale for changing this is not only to align with the protocol and policies of most other school districts but also to allow the board to be more productive with its examination revision and creation of policies the committee agreed to recommend policy 003 to the full board for adoption and again to recommend zero zero nine to be repealed policy zero zero five and relating to the organization of the board was also examined the committee discussed whether it was necessary to include such detail about the role of the independent auditor in this policy when another policy already outlines the provisions of the independent auditor it was agreed that while other policy contains

143more details concerning the role and regulations outlining the independent audit the information contained in policy 005 serves as an adequate reference point as it concerns the organization of the board finally the committee took questions from the community and revisited protocols in order to ensure that its commitment to providing details to the community are being met the committee addressed its own concern that given the shift in the language of the policy zero zero three from free three readings to two readings details of the meetings can be put to our community to keep them well informed in the event that they cannot be present at policy meetings the committee's commitment to provide detailed summaries of meetings was reaffirmed as part of their efforts to include our community a draft calendar was presented containing a list of policies

144that the committee might consider taking up for the remainder of the school year so that the public has the information about upcoming topics and may exercise the opportunity to attend meetings about policies that they that may interest them the policy committee adjourned at 9 37 pm the next policy committee will be held on february 23rd was held in b 226 at strathaven middle school and the next policy meeting oh mark yes same right yes march 23rd in room b 226 in strathaven middle school and i really hope that everyone can attend thank you so much for that report uh and i appreciate that um the support for going back to uh a more thorough explanation of some of the the elements of the policy decisions for those who aren't able to attend the policy meeting

145but are interested in such uh next miss vote i think you're going to provide the wellness uh advisory update yes all right um so i'm reporting on the district wellness committee meeting which was tuesday january 25th at 4 p.m um it was attended by all kinds of people boards staff community members and also students so it was a really great conversation there were seven agenda items but i only have brief things to say about each um the first is the committee goals update so the group discussed the 2021 2022 nutrition goals and noted that they are on schedule with our end of the year timeline the second agenda item was food exemption follow-up the district food exemption guidelines were addressed with the group and that is policy 246. the food fundraiser exam exemption request was

146shared and also discussed amongst all of the people who attended the third agenda item were updates from the nutrition group kristin matheson introduced herself as the new food service director and she gave an overview of the nutrition group in general and the work they've been doing over the school year the fourth agenda item was labeling of food ingredients there was a concern that food ingredients weren't fully labeled for lunch and breakfast and so um uh kristen matthinson is going to do a quick fix for laboring labeling of all ingredients um and she's going to reach out to the corporate headquarters to have everything updated on the menu so people can see you know one example was what kind of meat might be in something um fifth item perceptions of the use of cell phones and

147social media on mental health this was actually a really interesting and balanced discussion and we use newsprint and discussed in small groups there were both pros and cons that were noted um the pros were connecting with people having fun entertainment sharing of news and information collaboration well-being apps and sharing of photos and the cons were negativity content um news like a negative content of news or information or getting that information when you're not really in the mood to have it time in isolation um sleep deprivation for those who keep their phone in their room when they're going to sleep and stay up predators bullying instant gratification scams disinformation safety issues and legal ramifications um there were two students who were part of the conversation and when asked um if they would give up social media

148one said yes and one said no so it was an interesting conversation um okay sixth agenda item was presentation by um danielle bertone she is a strathaven middle school counselor and she gave a presentation on middle school mental health in general and all the services that are provided by her department she provided a detailed presentation on the middle school mental health program and all of the different kinds of supports in place for students the seventh item was just open floor discussion a community member shared his idea to survey students regarding their perspectives on what students want in school and what is important to them um people thought that was a great idea and then there was also a discussion on how we support staff during covid specifically their self-care trauma-invested practices and professional development um

149so uh closed with that um it was a great meeting the next meeting is tuesday april 26th at 4 p.m and we invite all who would like to attend so thank you thank you uh moving to uh let's see we have the delaware county community college liaison miss wilbur any reports from that today we have not yet met okay so i think it's coming up this month hopefully okay at least i'm on their list i know that all right wonderful thank you uh mr kudus any updates from the dciu i have two items that may be to be of interest to the members of one for swarthmore school district the first is the on the february second 2nd 2022 board of directors meeting we approved the informa information technology repair shop innovation grant application from

150february 2nd 2022 to february 1st 2026 and approved an approval to create four it service technician positions one field information technology service technician position and one lead information technology service technician position to support the i.t repair shop innovation grant in other words um the dciu has set up a a shop to support um i.t repair for the school districts and the schools in delaware county i think i think it's a great idea i think you got the districts will receive the priority in any repair or replacement work that has to be done so i think uh the delays in getting ite equipment repaired or new ones um hopefully is a thing of the past i don't know aj have you uh talked to them about it it is supposed to be you know intended to

151make it so much easier on the school districts in delaware county i am still uh i will have another meeting with the dciu they did mention in our previous meeting all those repairs we already do in-house with with our own staff through the warranty through dell but we will keep it in mind uh for future but all of our warranties through dell we do in-house or have a dell tech come right on to okay do most of our repairs okay they will be certified technicians at the dci yes thank you in in multiple multiple manufacturers thank you so uh the other item is that um today uh the applications for the delaware county technical schools closed today as of february 23rd we they had received over 900 applications for 21 programs that's a lot more

152than they expected it's a lot more than prior years um they've kind of been expecting this for a little while so what is happening right now is there's a planned uh renovation and major construction at the uh folcroft facility to um to i i forget what it is it's almost like 10 times the space there now and each program will have its own spaces so that none are on top of each other because these facilities actually share share spaces with other program programs such as head start early childhood education and some special ed programs so each program will have its own facility and hopefully they can accommodate all applicants in the future so that's all i have thanks that's great to hear i know they've been working on the fall craft uh thing for quite

153a long time because yeah that's really good um okay um miss what's that i um i know you have a legislative um delaware county school board's legislative council update this evening yes um as you all know or if not um i'll let you know that governor wolf released his proposed state budget and that was around february 8th but following that both the house and senate appropriation committees will hold hearings on the budget plan the house hearing with pde is march 7th the senate is march 10th and the final budget approval has to be done by june so um there'll be a lot of heated discussions in harrisburg he uh i emailed everybody a copy of the budget at a glance um so you guys can look at that then special bill 931 and 932 the

154educational tax credits were both passed in the senate on december 14th both will divert funds to private and secretarian schools with no tax payer accountability special bill 937 the mandatory coveted vaccines would prohibit covet 19 vaccine mandates for children as a condition for entering into k-12 school the final passage in the senate was december 14th received in the house and referred to and was referred to the house education department on december 15th so it's still being discussed hb house bill 412 substitute teacher shortage was approved by the governor december 17th and is now act number 91. house bill the posting of school curriculum signed in the house and in the senate december 15. it was presented to the governor december 16th and he vetoed this bill on december 22nd as veto number five house bill

1551642 assistant students in economically disadvantaged schools final passes by the senate 30 to 19 december 14th received as amended in the house and referred house rules for concurrence on december 15. house bill 2045 early literacy program was referred to the house appropriations committee december 15th the charter reform update is still being there's a court case and um it it's still out for debate senator tim carney at the meeting a special ed education funding commission report the commission is ongoing it meets every five years many big decisions were made prior to senator kearney joining the commission in 2019 the commission voted to prohibit members from discussing charter school findings to the public senator curry voted against this as he felt that there was a lack of transparency to the public on the commission's findings a new

156report was published in december and makes recommendations including special education funding formula changes transparency and the contingency fund that the commission is reconstitu constituting in 2024 with no delay due to coving the ideal full fund act is house house bill 5 59 84 and congressman mary gay scanlon has presented on this at the meeting and she basically said that the federal government has never lived up to their commitment to fund ida idea and h.r 5984 is one of the first bills that she signed on to representative scallon reported that she has not heard anything about the spill moving independently and it more serves to keep the issue at the forefront instead the house is trying to increase idea funding through appropriation process with representative dolor leading efforts to beef up special education funding the child

157tax credit the house passed the funding bill for 2022 with increased special ed funding however the senate has not yet passed it and is under pressure to do so by february 18. negotiations are still happening and this funding increase stays then will be the largest and largest increase in idea in 20 years and it includes 2.6 billion increase for idea part b state grants for a total of 15.5 billion 105 million increase for ide a section 619 preschool grant for a total of 502.6 million and 250 million increase for idea part c infants and toddlers for a total of 731.8 million scallion requested that we convene regular meetings for informal conversations between school board members and her office including state legislators and that concludes oh they there are the virtual school board there is a

158virtual school board no that happened already they have an all-school district monthly exchange which is the third tuesday of each month 12 30 to 1 30. i it's virtual and it's open to all school directors and they have a new school director exchange which is the third thursday of each month and that's for newly elected school board members and that's through the pennsylvania school board association and that concludes my presentation um thank you so much for that um can we ask you to share um like the you may have already have you shared that with the full board maybe in an email um separately so that folks know how to access the exchange um information oh i can that would that would be great just um you covered a lot of important information okay if

159everybody have that thank you um and then finally we have a psba update um if uh ms witkowski smith any updates from psba they want to show very quickly uh psva the pennsylvania school boards association uh i'm their liaison for and i just want to say uh that i'm very open you're right thanks aj uh i'm the representative for pennsylvania school boards association psba and um i just want to thank dr marseille for um encouraging us to become and to sign part of the principles the principles for governance and leadership i think it would be great to join uh all of our neighbors who are uh are participating in this just to let you know that this month psba has been focused on the budgeting process and the role of the school board so i'm

160happy to report that our new budgeting software that we've purchased and that the utilization of that software by our budget director mary martin is in line with recommended standards and that the transparency noted in our finance report includes our detailed financial statements and the treasurer's report so we're very pleased to be making progress in that in that direction uh also federal ester iii funds elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds now require districts to apply for funds and to apply them appropriately i'm happy to report that mary figura has applied for and been approved for our for wallingford swarthmore school district funds which what i i hear is a rather lengthy lengthy application process and that we're on track to support our students with increased mental health supports and programs to address learning loss due

161to covin so thank you for for doing that the pennsylvania department of education is also recommending that schools review their data security plan the board listened to our security plan as presented by aj centroni in our facilities [Music] meeting and aj reported that we are in the top 10 districts for providing secure data system and that that both prevent students from viewing inappropriate materials and importantly for blocking hackers from access to district data so we're all like all three i was just very proud to be able to uh you know say that you know we're right there so um and then as you heard the governor's budget is under review and we'll keep you posted thank you so much um i think it probably is a nice segue to revisit the topic of of taking

162the motion for approval of the psba uh principles for governance and leadership and so um i still move do i have a second do we we we didn't actually we voted to modify the agenda yep then we paused so i have it down as uh eight to nothing that was to modify the agenda right no we might we did the principles it was a roll call vote the motion to amend the agenda that came second was um a role or a just a vote as a uh as i okay it's been a long meeting so some of us remember doing it and some of us do not okay it's in it's in the record with a vote all right um that will take us then to personnel we have 15 items for action and personnel

163are there any items on the list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest no okay here we go we have in resignations and retirements we have the approval of the resignation of two non-certified staff as listed in the agenda and the retirement of sante georgie carpenter in the operations department and we thank mr georgie for service and wish him well in retirement in appointments we have the approval of two appointments and certified staff we have ruth garrett long-term substitute guidance counselor at the high school in non-certified staff we have alissa parsons long-term substitute instructional support at srs and eileen conrie instructional support at west we have the approval of one leave of absence as listed in the agenda we have the approval of three changes of assignment as listed in

164the agenda we have the approval of the appointment of mrs marlena o'kane for the safe to say work for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year as stipulated we have the approval of the addition of jonathan blake at srs as the fourth grade digital literacy curriculum writer for the 2021-2022 school year as stipulated we have the approval of carrie reese and audrey ennis as mentors to new teachers during the 2021-2022 school year is stipulated we have the approval of the additional appointment of ashley yingst at srs to the parent engagement team for additional work hours at her per diem rate not to exceed 15 hours during the 2021-2022 school year as stipulated we have the approval of the 2021-2022 spring athletic supplemental appointments is stipulated we have the approval of the 2021-2022 activity supplement activity

165supplemental appointments as stipulated we have the approval of the 2021-2022 fall athletic supplemental post-season pay as stipulated with the approval of additions to the 2021-2022 conference request as stipulated we have the approval of the change of salary status for one employee effective february 25th 2022 as stipulated we have the approval of the 2022 summer band and string program and i would note that the program is self-supporting and that payment to the instructors is based on revenue received minus deductions for fica in retirement and so as such it is cost neutral to the district and finally we have the approval of the reorganization plan dated february 28 2022 as attached to the agenda all items in this section are as attached or described in the agenda do i have a motion so moved um hold on

166just a moment i might have missed one um okay uh we also have um approval of curriculum supplementals the district the administration recommends that the board of school directors approve the change of appointments to the 2021-2022 curriculum supplement supplementals as stipulated in the agenda and so with that do i have a motion all items in the section are as attached described in the agenda and do i have a motion so moon thank you mr cutis do i have a second second uh sorry no okay miss holbert uh do i have any discussion i would like to offer actually a couple comments um so i think some of you on the board are aware that in my professional life i lead an enterprise level performance optimization and transformation program and so lately i've been reflecting a

167lot on the synergies between that work and our work here on the board and in recent days it came upon an article by a gentleman named andreas andreas schleicher which was published in april 2020 and mr mr schleicher serves as a special advisor on education policy to the secretary general of oecd for those who are familiar with the organization for economic cooperation and development and in the articles type was titled how to prepare students for their future not our past and he writes in this digitalized global age the next generation of young citizens will create jobs not seek them and collaborate to advance an increasingly complex world that will require imagination empathy and resilience and entrepreneurship the ability to fail forward and the most obvious implication of a world that requires learners to constantly adapt

168and grow is the need to build the capacity and motivation for lifelong learning i thought about that and how everything in those statements is rooted in the need for us to prepare students for a world in which the velocity of change is going to be like unlike anything that we've seen in the past and we can't do that without critically examining where we are today where we need to go and what's it going to take to get there and that brings me back then to the proposed reorganization plan when we embarked on the search for a new superintendent an overarching objective was to identify transformational leader and those of you who were on the board at the time will recall the conversations we had about that and someone who would move us forward as a

169district this evening dr marseille shared the output of his re-examination of the organizational structure of the administrative team and not surprisingly since it was created at a different time to meet different objectives different goals he's concluded that several significant organizational changes are needed leadership structures of any organization need to be intentionally designed to create the systems the practices the culture that's necessary to achieve an organization's goals and that i it maybe that seems um obvious but it's not we often don't look back at organization structures and that's part of what i do in my in my professional life and i i know how important that is and so what i'd like to offer is that we're an excellent district but the status quo is not delivering equitable outcomes in our student achievement today nor is

170it producing the results we would expect to see overall in certain academic areas and even if it was maintaining the status quo is not going to prepare our students for a changing world in fact i feel strongly that status quo is is the fastest path to mediocrity that one can get and so with every reorganization i understand there will be changes that are uncomfortable and we have to be mindful of the fact that change will cause initial discomfort but our job is to do what is in the best interest of your of our students and so i hope um that my colleagues here tonight will join me in voting yes on the reorganization plan uh do we have any other comments um for this evening okay uh with that uh do i have a motion

171for approval i'm sorry i already have a motion yeah i'm sorry i went back and did that again um so miss um miss figure can you then please take a real call vote mr cutis bye mrs miss vote aye ms whitsett aye ms winkowski smith aye dr grandy aye mr henry aye ms holbert aye ms walkman aye personnel items pass eight to zero right thank you uh moving then to curriculum we have six items for action and curriculum are there any items on the list that anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest paulus i i'm sorry guys i flipped a page too far um three people i know you're trying to get it yeah okay i hope to ten o'clock i skipped over a lot actually it's been a long day

172um we have three policies for adoption and two policies for repeal under policies for adoption um that are presented for third and final reading they are the same as when presented for second reading and they are policy zero zero one functions uh zero zero five organization and 239 international student programs uh policies for repeal upon third and final reading are the same also as when presented for second reading they are policy zero zero nine policy development policy 231.239.1 educational programs for non-resident students do i have a motion uh thank you miss vote do i have a second uh thanks miss witkowski smith any discussion items madam president there are a couple of artifacts that remain in these in these policies that are on the agenda that are going to be cleaned up but i just

173wanted to alert you to the fact that yes they are there yes you're going to be voting on these tonight however they do need to get cleaned up a little bit and um these are the items that we discussed in the in the most recent policy committee meetings so the just to give you an example in policy 003 there are some bracketed letters that were actually from they were meant to be pointers to where somebody on the committee wanted to be able to know to discuss something from there okay i i understood that they were taken out but the version that made it onto the onto the agenda may have still had them in there okay all right were there any other items like that that need to be cleaned up that we should call

174out there is a there is uh in policy zero zero five there is a sentence that was i'm fairly sure was corrected during the the policy meeting so but it's at the end and it has to do with uh the appointment the appointment duration for board members on committees and it is supposed to be one sentence it is instead split into two which leaves the second sentence not making a lot of sense okay all right so let me reopen then for for a comment um any other any other questions then related to uh what mr vermin has just suggested and i mean with with that i am i'm wondering do we we can we could send them back is that material and no it's not a policy i i believe that it's not material as

175a matter of fact i believe the policy committee actually dealt with these so i'm actually suggesting that you should feel safe and confident in voting for these tonight okay all right thank you thank you questions all right we did just take the uh do we do we just need to roll call vote at this point mr guard could you take the roll call vote miss vote miss whitsett hi miss wikowski smith hi dr grandy aye mr henry aye ms holbert aye mr cutis aye ms walkman aye policy items pass eight to zero thank you moving to curriculum we have six items for action and curriculum are there any items on the list that anyone would like to separate could we separate uh c b and d c d and e okay uh so i will

176or as a group yeah i think i just had a question for dr marshay about the three so we can we can still hold them together and you can ask your question um or we could separate them as you great question uh it doesn't matter to me i just wanted to get some clarification on those three so if we can do it during our regular discussion under all of curriculum that is totally fine i think i should separate them just in case um so we're going to take item a uh well here i'll walk through um category one overnight field trips we have category one overnight field trips for the 2021-2022 school year as stipulated we have the approval of the high school german exchange student program for the 2022-2023 school year as stipulated we

177have the approval of a consulting agreement in the amount of thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars with the national school public relations association to conduct a communications audit uh do i have a motion for approval of items a b and f so move thank you dr grande a second second thank you mr cutis any discussion on those items okay miss fagor could you please take the roll call vote miss vote hi ms whitsett miss mikowski smith hi dr grandy hi mr henry aye ms holbert aye mr cutis aye ms walkman aye those items pass eight to zero okay then returning to items c d and e um item c we have the approval for of the consulting agreement for dr sharon ravitch an individual part an independent contractor to support the implementation of the equity

178audit cultural proficiency equity and inclusion and belonging payment for services rendered under under this agreement shall not exceed thirty thousand dollars uh we have the approval of a consulting agreement with dr gene stanley of the watershed cons counseling and consultation services in an amount not to exceed twelve thousand dollars to support the same the implementation of the equity audit cultural proficiency equity inclusion and belonging and third we um sorry um and third we have the approval of the consulting agreement in the amount of twelve thousand dollars from mr timothy fox uh director of the center for school study council at the university of pennsylvania to support the implementation of the equity audit cultural proficiency equity inclusion and belonging do i have a motion thank you uh miss vote do i have a second uh pardon

179me thank you miss holbert um uh comments um from the board of mr henry i just had a quick question for dr marseille i was did we just approve your proposed reorganization plan part of that reorganization plan um there's a new position called the assistant superintendent and one of the primary was mentioned a couple times in the reorganization plan but one of their primary responsibilities for the super this assistant superintendent would be to lead the implementation of uh the three audits the equity curriculum and communications audit so and then we we're just voting on approving three one my question for you is just make me feel good that make me understand why we need to have these three consultants come in to do the implementation of these three audits and then have our assistant superintendents

180do the exact seems like the same thing or no no i think that they're not um in my former role as assistant superintendent um my superintendent tasked me in being the face of those particular audits my responsibility was to ensure that there were clear articulation alignment with with the work and that members of the student services team members of the office of education were indeed making the actionable steps needed to move that in the direction what um part of the work that these three consultants will do when we bring them if we run the board in the board votes is their primary role for the equity is to synthesize all that information work with administration to develop a plan uh an actionable plan with key performance indicators our job is to take that and then

181now move it forward so they're shaping um based on the dashboard that you have access to based on the focus group statements that we have how do you put together a professional development timeline that addresses each of those our assistant superintendent plays a role in ensuring that we are making and meeting those particular uh those particular benchmarks so they are going to help shape um here's the steps and here's the pd you need we take over in terms of making sure that that's happening with true fidelity any other questions or comments from the board on those items okay if not then do i have a motion uh for approval of items c d and e under curriculum we have emotional we have miss vote oh i'm sorry all right gosh i can't miss fulbert i

182am so sorry guys uh so we will um then go for the uh the roll call vote yes what's that hi miss mccaskey smith hi dr grandy aye mr henry aye ms holbert aye mr cutis aye ms vote aye ms walkman aye those items pass eight to zero thank you all right that takes us then to student services we have two items for approval and student services uh anything there that anyone wants to separate from the rest if not we have the approval of related services provider contracts for two students for the 2021 extended school year and the 2021-2022 school year and we have the approval of tuition contracts for three students for the 2021-2022 school year and the 2021 extended school year uh do i have a motion hello yeah okay a second second

183nope i heard uh dr grande first on that one okay uh any questions or comments if not uh miss vagor can you please take the roll call yes i'm sorry um miss wikowski smith hi dr grandy hi mr henry aye ms colbert aye mr cutis aye ms vote dr grandy i'm sorry that's what i was looking at i was wrong miss whitsett miss walkman aye student services items pass eight to zero thank you sorry i've now now extended my confusion to others i apologize uh all right next in finance we have nine items for approval and finance are there any items on this list anyone on the board would like to separate from the rest i'm sorry oh mr henry i'm sorry letter h please letter h we will take separately okay anything else all

184right uh starting with item a approval of a tax appeal settlement we have the approval to authorize fox rothschild llp to enter into an agreement for a property located in nether providence township as stipulated we have the approval of a wage adjustment for a dollar and 50 cents per hour for each hour worked retroactive to january 1st 2022 continuing through the end of the 2021-2022 school year we have the approval of uh fulton bank as the district's lock box provider for the purposes of collecting tax payments beginning with the 2022-2023 school year including related fund transfer agreement and fee schedule as attached we have approval of payments to vendors from january 15 2022 through sorry through february 18th 2022 is stipulated we have acknowledgment of receipt of the january 2022 financial statements for funds 10

18532 51 and 81 is stipulated we have the approval of budget transfers as stipulated uh and we have acknowledgement of receipt of the treasurer's report for december 2021. do i have them all items um are as stipulated in the agenda or is attached uh do i have a motion for approval uh i'm sorry there's uh one one more more than one more yep one more crown castle least fiber renewal we have the approval of the crown castle dark fiber renewal as stipulated so do i have a motion for approval of items a b c d e f g and i uh thank you miss holbert do i have a second second mr tutus thank you um any questions or comments and uh mr gork may ask you to take the call vote on those items

186dr grandy aye mr henry aye ms holbert aye mr cutis aye ms boat miss whitsett aye ms witkowski smith aye ms walkman aye those finance items pass eight to zero okay and then we have the approval of the retainer and consulting agreement in the amount of ten thousand dollars for cardinal point homeland security group for safety and security services as attached do i have emotion so moved thank you dr grundy a second second thank you miss food and uh do i have uh comments mister yeah like this as a board i saw this was in here um i believe i don't question uh mr fox's uh credentials or any you know actually he's very good and his report was excellent so i have his report we all have it here we've all read it um

187i was just i'm not really sure i get i get a little wary when we start with a lot of consultants in here we've just approved some so i saw more of them on here and i thought does he do we really need to pay for him to be on a retainer when i have his report uh and all these things are very a lot of many of them are common sense we could do them uh so i was just curious as to what we're getting for our ten thousand dollars and a lot of these companies i mean they are for-profit companies they it starts and builds and i'm very cognizant of being you know uh stewards of our communities tax dollars so i just wanted to know what we're getting and is it really

188necessary for us to uh approve a what do they call it a retainer um absolutely unequivocally um and i want to share with this board that um this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the individuals we need in this organization uh to begin the drastic shift that we need based on prior experience of other districts i've been in um we want to build capacity so that those individuals are not here for a very long time but it will take some significant time as you are reading through a number of reports but i'll go specifically to um the the retainer for mr mr fox why i believe that is necessary was because though some of those items that you saw were low-hanging fruit um sort of speak in terms of things we can

189quickly jump on um what i wanted his expertise and uh how do i build capacity within my organization with those who are leading the work um to make sure that we are doing it with fidelity and we're doing correctly so that um we're not handing over the work to him we are doing the work and then when we need his third eye is uh his opinion on is this the correct trajectory here's the reports that we've revised here's the meetings that we are attending is this true to the direction which we're going um that's why we put that retainer there not to here go write the report or hear go and fix these it is um you've identified what we needed we're putting meetings together we're putting professional learning opportunities together um based on what

190we've put together so far can we have a check-in with you to determine where we are um as an organization so though um so much of those things that you've identified and he's identified were things that we can um uh that we can do ourselves i also shared that there are other entities within the organization other administrators who are going to be tasked to carry that safety and security torch and as a result i want to make sure that they get the appropriate tutelage and support they need when that baton gets handed off to them if they haven't played that role before so he will play a vital role in making sure that there is smooth transition i do believe and i've shared that there are multiple um responsibilities that shouldn't fall under one particular

191individual and that should be shared so um there's conversations around i um though safety and security is um has been relegated to mayor fagor's office i do believe that operations needs to play a larger role in that as well which is what i'm accustomed to in previous districts so that's an opportunity to get uh the guidance from him as well for those who will be coming on board so we don't intend to we're going to be very deliberate and intentional in terms of when we bring mr fox on board and not to have him do the work uh for us we have people on the ground who are going to do the work it is a check in to make sure we're in the right uh we're in the right direction do we know what

192how many hours we're getting for ten thousand dollars um is that something that he provides uh it is on the contract and it says 125 per hour and then after that assuming that retainer's used do you have to come back to the board for an additional approval um yes i don't anticipate i'm coming back to the board for additional uh approval thank you yeah yeah and dr marseille if we don't use that money until the end like throughout the end of the year it gets rolled over so it's not it's not like uh if we don't use it we lose it so it remains with us until we use the money other questions okay miss figure can we oh well one yes miss what's that on the safety and security is it always going to

193be about the the buildings and and the property or is it going to address um security as far as with the reorganization you have a position for safety i have recommended to the board that we as part of the budgetary process consider those positions yes yes so well that does not speak to that so he's just doing that he is just um on the physical plant okay of that process okay yes and any other questions okay miss figure if you could please take the world cup mr henry miss holbert hi mr cutis hi miss lent sorry miss vote miss what's up miss buckowski smith hi dr grandy aye ms walkman aye finance item h passes seven to one all right that takes us to audience recognition um for items not on the agenda is there

194anyone who would like to sorry you moved that to an earlier oh that's right right we did at the beginning i we can never go out of order again on the agenda because it clearly uh mixes me up more than a little um with that do we have any old business do we have any new business please no okay thank you this meeting is adjourned oh i do have this